Very good, now only public key authentication works. You may use both if you prefer; you don't have to choose one or the other. Usually on the LAN users want more openness rather than more restrictions, and then using public key authentication is a nice convenience because you can grant access to more users without giving them system account passwords, or streamline your own SSH-surfing. Remote logins over the Internet definitely need to be more locked-down, so we'll learn how to do that in Part 3.

Doing All This Without Moving

You can do all this without ever leaving your chair, if you have SSH already enabled on your computers. Suppose you are sitting at Computer A, and follow the steps in this article to log in from Computer B. You can then log remotely into Computer B to allow logging in from Computer A. And so on. You can even restart OpenSSH without getting disconnected.

Carla Schroder is the author of the Linux Cookbook and the Linux Networking Cookbook (O'Reilly Media), the upcoming "Build a Digital Recording Studio with Audacity" (NoStarch Press), a lifelong book lover, and the managing editor of LinuxPlanet and Linux Today.